Last Try For Lame-duck Congress

Odds Look Slim For Agreement On 9-11 Reforms

November 15, 2004|By Dan Morgan The Washington Post and Information from the Los Angeles Times was used to supplement this report.

WASHINGTON — When Congress adjourned last month for the election, it appeared members would have more to do when they returned this week than haggle over how to fund federal domestic agencies in 2005.

Republican leaders held out the possibility of using the "lame duck" session to revamp the intelligence community along lines suggested by the Sept. 11 commission, and perhaps limit class-action lawsuits, a priority for business groups. GOP officials have not abandoned those goals. But barring last-minute breakthroughs, prospects do not appear good that either will be enacted before the 108th Congress ends.

House-Senate negotiators on the intelligence legislation acknowledged that time was running out. If so, the proposal will have to be restarted in the Congress that convenes in January.

Some members also hope to reauthorize the government's main program for educating handicapped students, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.

Business lobbyists said last week they were urging Congress to attach the class-action bill to a big package of domestic spending legislation that must be enacted before Congress adjourns for the year, but they had received no guarantees.

That leaves action on a mammoth $385 billion "omnibus" spending bill for the 2005 fiscal year that began Oct. 1 as the main order of business. The bill, still taking shape, will lump together a new foreign aid bill and as many as eight other bills funding every agency except the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Defense and the District of Columbia.

After years of rapid growth in many domestic programs, Congress this year agreed to strict limits on discretionary spending not related to defense or counterterrorism. The Bush administration budget called for an increase in domestic spending amounting to six-tenths of 1 percent. Congress, bowing to fiscal conservatives, went one better and called for a freeze.

In effect, spending on popular domestic programs finally is being squeezed by the huge costs of fighting the war on terrorism at home and abroad. Congress approved a $391 billion defense spending bill for fiscal 2005, but the figure did not cover costs of the Iraq war. Congress in July approved $25 billion more for the war, and the administration is expected to seek as much as $75 billion in addition early next year.

Meanwhile, members of Congress said Sunday that they were concerned about turmoil within the Central Intelligence Agency after last week's retirement of the agency's deputy director and reports of more resignations to come.

"The agency seems in freefall in Washington, and that is a very, very bad omen in the middle of a war," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Appearing on CBS's Face the Nation, Harman said she thought the reports of low morale at the agency were because of the four "inexperienced" House Intelligence Committee staff members who came to the CIA when Porter Goss, the committee's former chairman, became director of Central Intelligence in September.

"Many of us worked with that staff in the House," she said, describing the four as "highly partisan. ... Frankly, on both sides of the aisle in the committee, we were happy to see them go."

Information from the Los Angeles Times was used to supplement this report.